


Daisy Canfield Will Have Her Revenge On Los Angeles

by ricky_goldsworth



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Case Fic, Daisy Canfield will have her revenge on Los Angeles, F/M, Fluff, Kinda, M/M, Multi, Paramour Mansion, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M, but you get the idea, ghoulfriends and girlfriend, it's more of a buildup, no one else was writing this goddamn ship so it's my city now, the house is a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 04:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13756302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricky_goldsworth/pseuds/ricky_goldsworth
Summary: Once Sara becomes a permanent addition to the True Crime crew, it’s inevitable that she ends up roped into the filming for the next season of Supernatural, too. She’s shockingly nice about it, like she is about everything: “oh my god, Ryan, I’d love to!” like it’s not even remotely an inconvenience to come along to this nightmare mansion and help ‘direct’ two idiots with go-pros.





	Daisy Canfield Will Have Her Revenge On Los Angeles

**Author's Note:**

> Sara Rubin is a fucking angel and every interaction she has with the boys makes me die so I made more of them ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> If you got here by googling yourself, hit the back button now! If you got here some other way, I have a tumblr at [ricky-goldsworth](https://ricky-goldsworth.tumblr.com/post/171603344704/daisy-canfield-will-have-her-revenge-on-los).

Once Sara becomes a permanent addition to the True Crime crew, it’s inevitable that she ends up roped into the filming for the next season of Supernatural, too. She’s shockingly nice about it, like she is about everything: “oh my god, Ryan, I’d love to!” like it’s not even remotely an inconvenience to come along to this nightmare mansion and help ‘direct’ two idiots with go-pros.

Ryan is beyond relieved to have her along. It’s just the three of them tonight, and even though that should scare the shit out of him, honestly, he’s as close to good as he gets on-site. She’s good with the camera – between the three of them, they’ve actually got a full crew, with Shane on sound and Ryan doing his thing - but she’s also a proper director in a way Ryan just isn’t, not even with three seasons of this thing under his belt. She sees things he doesn’t. He realises, thinking about this, that it’s kind of an ironic thing to think about someone he’s about to drag into a haunted mansion, but there it is. Sara Rubin is just that good.

“So,” she says, all bubbles, sidling up to him and nudging his shoulder with her own as he hefts a camera out of the trunk. “Can I have some of the juicy details?”

Ryan laughs. “You already know the details, Sara. We shot the re-enactments like a week ago.”

Sara laughs, leaning into the trunk to pick up a boom mic. “Okay, so I know what _happened_ , but I want to hear the _story_! Come on, get your theory voice on!”

Still struggling with the camera – it’s a serious television camera, too big for anything besides establishing shots and talking heads, and he’s kind of stressed about having to operate it in there – Ryan laughs. And blushes. Even after all the years they've been friends, she’s got such a _presence_ , all warmth and light and casual-yet-heartfelt compliments. He feels swept up in it. No wonder Shane -

“Uh, yeah, when Shane gets his ass into gear, sure!” Ryan interrupts that train of thought before it can gain any kind of steam.

Sara’s lips quirk into a smile. “Yeah, where _is_ Shane?” she asks, craning her neck to see around to the far side of the car. “Shane! What are you doing? Get over here, this boom is supposed to be your responsibility!” and she’s off, boom slung over her shoulder, to swat at Shane who’s leaning languid against the car with his phone out like he’s just talent waiting for his cue. Ryan rolls his eyes. What an ass.

Then he turns toward the Paramour, swallows hard, and wonders, like he does every time, if it’s too late to cancel Supernatural altogether and go back to covering murders from the safety of the office.

It’s huge. Opulent in that bastardised Mediterranean style that was so popular in the early Hollywood era, like a castle made from red-brown stucco and tile. There are places that look a lot like it up in the Hills, and some of those are haunted too, but not like this. Remembering the drive up here, the steep cliffs of Mulholland Drive and the view over the city, Ryan swallows hard. They’d gotten some good footage of him, white-knuckled at the wheel, pulling up slowly to the overlook where Daisy Canfield’s car had gone over the edge. And Shane behind the camera laughing it up, of course.

“Alright! I got it! Jesus, can’t you let a guy send a last goodbye to his loved ones?” Shane’s voice carries as he comes back into view, the boom mic under his arm, Sara giggling alongside him.

“Oh, yeah, because that’s definitely what that was,” she’s teasing, poking him in the side.

Shane throws up his free hand, his expression all exaggerated innocence. “Sara, please! I’m _very_ frightened right now. Can’t you tell?”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan laughs, kicking him in the shin as he catches up. Sara smirks at him from Shane’s other side. “Let’s get this show rolling.”

“Are you planning on filming the intro with that thing?” Shane asks, nodding at the camera Ryan is still holding over his shoulder. It feels like it weighs a ton, and worse than that, it’s unwieldy as hell.

“Haa, no, I don’t think so. Let’s just do it on handheld. Does that work, Sara?”

Sara cocks her head up at the house. “Actually, I think I could get a good establishing shot from out here. We have a power source, right?”

Ryan nods, setting the camera down with a groan. “Yeah, we do. Guess my lifting this thing was a waste of time,” he smiles ruefully, rubbing his shoulder.

Sara smiles, her eyes bright with… something. “I wouldn’t say that,” she says, getting to work on framing. Ryan steps back from the camera to let her do her thing. He can set up a camera just fine on his own, of course, but it never gets old to see her so in her element.

Ryan turns back toward the Paramour. It looms. The sun is dipping toward the roofline, and the shadows stretching out in front of the mansion feel like they’re reaching out toward him.

“Jesus. I can’t believe we were allowed to book this whole place out,” he says, half to himself. His usual cocktail of nerves and anticipation has been stronger than usual in the leadup to this shoot. They’re going to be completely on their own until sunrise. There had been a guide that the owner had wanted them to bring along, but they’d declined. Tour guides tended to give the video a weird vibe, and Ryan used to spend as much time as not just editing them out altogether. As soon as they’d been able to start making requests from their filming locations, he’d started asking to be left alone with his crew. Only, before this season his “crew” hadn’t been made up entirely of Shane and Sara, and -

“The boys are big names now, Ryan!” Shane says, grinning wide at him like he always does when Ryan gets too in his own head. “One of these days they’re gonna send us out to that plague island, and then we’ll get burned by our own success. And the plague.”

Ryan laughs. “I still wouldn’t go anywhere near that place if they paid me. Ghosts are one thing. That place is a biohazard.”

“I’m glad you’re aware,” Shane says, and, at a gesture from Sara, moves out of the shot and over toward Ryan. He slips his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket, looking up at the house. “It’s pretty.”

“You always say that!” Ryan splutters. “No, it is _not_ pretty, it’s a creepy death house!”

Shane is unruffled, like he always is. He rocks back and forth on his feet, sighing like he’s the one who has any right to be exasperated, and looks down at Ryan. “Where’s all your bravery from last season gone, huh? Are you back to being scared lil’ Ryan?”

Ryan bristles. Like he always does. He elbows Shane in the ribs, and Shane makes a show of almost fumbling the boom mic. “You’re such a dick,” he says, but he’s grinning. “You’ll see. This place is the real deal.”

Shane’s eyes crinkle up when he laughs. “You think every place is the real deal.”

Ryan shoves him again. “Asshole.” It’s less of a shove and more of a nudge, but it gets the point across, probably. Shane looks down at him a while longer. His expression is soft, but Ryan still can’t tell what he’s thinking. He decided a long time ago that it isn’t worth trying to guess.

Sara straightens up. “Ryan, you wanna vet this angle?” she asks, nodding at the viewfinder. Ryan steps forward. Sara leans in to inspect the shot with him.

The shot is perfect, of course. The sky is just starting to shade toward sunset over the roof, casting the slightest prism rays down into the courtyard. The doors and windows are cast in deep shadow, giving the house an air of cold isolation in spite of the palm trees and the warm, earthen stucco. It’s California gothic if Ryan’s ever seen it.

“It looks fucking amazing, Sara, holy shit!” he says, turning to smile at her, only she’s still leaning in to look into the viewfinder with him and her face is _right there_ , and she smells like floral perfume and really nice shampoo and Ryan’s heart is maybe beating a bit faster than it should be over cinematography. She smiles back at him like this isn’t at all weird. Ryan smiles too, tries to be cool. “You’re so good at this. Thank you for coming along.”

She tucks away a strand of her curly hair, beaming at him. “Thank you for letting me in on it, Ryan!” she says. “Alright. Do you two want to get into place and do this thing? Bring the handhelds with you for close ups, and I’ll film from back here.”

Ryan nods. He’s almost loathe to mess up Sara’s shot with their bullshit, not to mention get any closer to the mansion, but this is what they’re here for. Daylight, and thus her shot, is fading fast. He squares his shoulders, like that’s going to make him any braver, and steps into frame.

“This is it,” he says, his voice dropping into its usual hosting cadence, “the infamous Paramour Mansion, once home to oil heiress Daisy Canfield and her husband, silent film actor Antonio Moreno, until Daisy’s tragic and mysterious death in 1933.”

“I like it!” Shane says brightly from his side. “Very old Hollywood. I can envision some pretty good parties happening here.”

Ryan scoffs as they start to walk toward the front entrance. “Yeah, well, they didn’t end well.”

Shane laughs. “Well then, I guess we should go in and see how the heiress is doing.”

Ryan balks in front of the door, huge and intimidating even though the place is still in regular use. Shane leans against the doorframe, makes no move to help, just watches him squirm through the viewfinder on his handheld camera. He’s been pushing Ryan to take the lead more and more lately. It’s nerve-wracking as hell.

“Okay. This is it.” Ryan says, bracing himself.

“Yup.” Shane pops his lips on the _p_ , not even looking up, just the image of casual. Ryan shoots him a dirty look even though he’s come to expect this.

He reaches out and touches the doorknob. It’s like touching ice. He hisses through his teeth and snatches his hand back. Shane raises an eyebrow at him and says nothing.

“It’s – it’s freezing cold! Why is it cold? The sun isn’t even down yet and it’s summer in fucking California, there is _no_ explanation for that.”

After a moment’s consideration, Shane says, “It’s been in the shade since at least midday.”

Ryan rolls his eyes directly into the camera, pulls his sleeve down over his hand and tries the doorknob again. It’s slippery and awkward under the fabric, but it turns. He pushes on the door. It swings open, silent on oiled hinges. Shane wheezes a laugh and straightens up, ready to follow him inside.

The entryway is… quirky. The owner’s tastes don’t exactly lean toward preservation. The walls are a vibrant turquoise, the floor still the original terracotta. The furniture is mismatched, as if it comes from an incredibly expensive thrift shop. The effect is not exactly ugly, Ryan supposes, just… jarring, especially considering the old photographs he’s spent so much time with for his research. Shane pans the camera around, murmuring appreciatively. Ryan swings the door shut behind them, careful not to touch the doorknob. He peers out through the glass around the door to see Sara packing up the main camera, her shot complete. He turns back to face the camera in Shane’s hand.

“Okay. I guess it’s time to have a look around.”

They don’t actually have a look around yet. Instead, they head into the sitting room the entryway opens onto – Shane’s camera still running – and sit down to wait for Sara.

“So,” Shane says, pointing the camera at him from where he’s arranged all eight fucking feet of himself into a wicker chair. He looks ridiculous. Ryan hits record on his camera and points it back at him.

“What, Shane?” he asks, mock-exasperated, zooming in on the awkward angles of Shane’s limbs.

“Is she really going to be here? She died on Mulholland Drive, wouldn’t her ghost haunt the cliffs?”

Ryan shrugs. “Maybe she does haunt the cliffs. I definitely felt something there. That being said, there are also numerous reports of odd happenings at the house, and her presence is the most likely explanation.”

Shane laughs. “Uh huh. And not, like, old plumbing, or any of the other hundred things it always is instead of ghosts.”

“Old plumbing doesn’t fill up bath tubs that aren’t plugged, Shane," Ryan says, and when Shane makes a face, "It doesn’t fill people’s heads with homicidal urges towards their bandmates and family members, either.”

“Look, I can’t say I put as much faith in the testimony of a bunch of tweaked out rockstars as you seem to.”

“That’s just it!” Ryan splutters in spite of himself, ignoring one jab in favour of another. “How can you expect me to prove to you that ghosts are real when you don’t believe anything I tell you?”

Shane just shrugs. “Because I’m asking you to give me actual evidence, Ryan. We’ve been over this.”

They keep up the banter for a while, not really intending to use much of it for the video but happy to keep trading off. Before long the door opens, and Shane turns his camera off and jumps up to help Sara. They bring the camera in together, set it up in front of an eggplant-coloured couch.

“This look like a good spot for the read?” Sara asks.

Ryan nods. “Yeah, this works. Shame about the, uh, renovations.”

Sara looks around the room. The walls in here are also teal, with a feature wall of scavenged tiles arranged in a queasy pattern. Again, it isn’t exactly unappealing, just. Odd.

“I mean, weren’t Hollywood people back then even weirder than they are now? Maybe she would have liked it,” Sara shrugs.

“Huh. Maybe,” Ryan says, sitting down on the couch, which sinks a lot deeper than he’d like. He’s going to look so short like this. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Shane sits down next to him, shifting closer when Sara gestures from behind the viewfinder. Their knees touch, but before they can readjust, Sara gives them the go ahead for the shot. Ryan clears his throat, makes eye contact with a shrugging Shane, and begins.

“The Paramour Mansion was originally constructed by the happy couple in 1923. It passed into the hands of Chloe P. Canfield after Daisy’s death, who converted the mansion into a school for girls. She would later sell the property to a convent. It remained a convent until the Whittier Narrows earthquake, at which time it was abandoned for eleven years. Following this period of dormancy, the estate was converted into a palatial recording studio where, for the past twenty years, it has played host to a number of musicians whose work is said to have been influenced by their experiences here, and by the restless spirit of Daisy Canfield.”

Shane raises an eyebrow. “Is our Daisy a singer, Ryan? Are we going to snag ourselves a hot EVP mixtape?”

Ryan shakes his head at him, smiling in spite of himself. “I guess you could say that,” he says. “Anyway, first we’re going to cover the early Hollywood era. You were right to assume they threw some serious parties here. Everyone who was anyone in the silent era was known to frequent what was then known as the Canfield-Moreno Estate.”

Shane’s smirk cracks into a smile. “Well, that’s not very spooky, is it?”

“I, ah, I mean I guess not, but it does set the scene for the much more… repressed life those who lived in the mansion would lead after Daisy’s death.” Ryan’s case voice is cracking under Shane’s prodding. He enjoys doing this to him, he knows. Ass.

“Fair enough. I don’t imagine the pool got much use when this place was a nunnery.”

After the read is done, Sara stands up and stretches. “It’s getting dark,” she says, looking out the bay window behind her, where the first stars are visible through her reflection in the glass.

“We should probably get our bags, then,” Shane says, standing up to join her. “Where are we staying? The “Blue Room”, was it?”

Ryan nods, apprehension snaking into him as he remembers all the stories about it online. Sara just smiles as she turns off the camera.

The Blue Room is absolutely as eerie as it sounded on the unexplained-mysteries forum. “ _Je_ sus,” Ryan breathes, panning around the room. Only the faintest blue glow illuminates the room, and they’re all still using their flashlights because it’s not nearly enough to see by. “Is this not the creepiest shit in the world? What is _with_ this place?”

Shane gives him a look. “It’s a blue room, Ryan. We probably could have foreseen this, given that it’s called the Blue Room.”

Sara laughs, rolling out her sleeping bag. Ryan hangs back, filming them setting up and talking into his mic about how creepy it is in spite of their protests. Sara rolls his sleeping bag out for him, and lines it up right next to hers and Shane’s.

Then Shane sits on the bed – a high wooden four-poster that has to be original or close to it, even though it’s painted powder blue now – and bounces, and tells Sara it’s really comfortable, and Sara joins him and agrees, and the whole sleeping on the floor idea goes out the window because as weird as Ryan feels about sharing a bed with his friends who are dating, he feels a lot weirder about sleeping on the floor alone in a haunted house.

Back when it was TJ and a couple others helping them film, they’d never slept over onsite with Ryan and Shane. Now, though, it's different. They haven't even really discussed the fact that Sara is going to be staying with them. It's just obvious. They're a three-man crew now, and she's Sara, and so of course she's going to stay the night right alongside them. And so she is, unzipping her sleeping bag to use as a blanket and setting her pillow in the centre of the bed, looking up and beaming at Ryan, not the camera, with a brightness that dissipates the energy of the Blue Room as surely as daylight.

“Okay, well now that that’s sorted out,” Shane says, once they’ve transferred their sleeping bags to the bed and arranged a sort of nest so they won't disturb the covers (he and Shane have done things like this plenty of times before, Ryan tells himself, so it's really only weird if he _isn’t_ comfortable doing the same when Shane’s girlfriend is here too-), “Shall we take the tour?”

Ryan almost wants to shake himself. Oh. Yeah. He isn’t supposed to be standing here overthinking sleeping bag etiquette, he’s meant to be helping run a production. “Yeah. I guess it’s that time,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

Ryan carries the big camera over his shoulder. It hurts after a while, rucking up his shirt and forcing him to set it down every few minutes with a groan like he’s lifting weights, but he keeps catching Shane or Sara watching him out of the corners of their eyes and as much as he wants to discount it, is used to discounting it with these two, he _knows_ what that look is. He’s seen it on plenty of girls before. In spite of the ghosts and the dark and his nerves, the camera feels a little lighter knowing he’s got their attention.

They’ve already covered Daisy’s actual death, both with the handhelds on the way here and with a proper re-enactment shoot on Mulholland Drive. Instead, they wander around the house and Ryan tells them stories about the parties, and the school, and the nunnery and the earthquake.

Eventually they find their way to the old master bedroom, where they set up the big camera again. Shane and Ryan sit down on a chaise at the end of the bed, Ryan taking a minute to fix his shirt where it’s rumpled under the weight of the camera.

“…Shouldn’t I get to sit at the chair end of this thing because I’m taller?” Shane asks as Sara rummages through the supply bag. He’s got that look in his eyes that always means trouble.

Ryan rolls his eyes, but Sara has a considering look on her face. “Maybe…” she says, checking the viewfinder. “…Yeah, I think that’s better. Swap places.”

“No, hang on, that’s not fair!” Ryan squawks as Shane immediately tries to clamber over him, “I was here first! I’m the one doing the talking! Come on!”

Shane ignores his protests, manhandles him until there’s – just - enough room for his beanpole body between Ryan and the chaise. They’re pressed up to one another, Shane resting his arms along the back of the chaise like they’re on a movie date, smirking down at him. Ryan flushes, then tries to tell himself it’s just because Shane’s being a little shit.

Then Sara digs the spirit box out of the supply bag, handing it to Ryan with a grin.

Shane throws his head back and groans. “Seriously? Do we have to do this?”

Ryan raises his eyebrows at him but doesn’t say anything, just holds the box out into the darkness of the room like an offering. Back behind the camera, Sara gives him the go-ahead.

“Okay, we’re currently sitting in the master bedroom where Daisy and her husband once slept. I’ve got our spirit box here, which any spirits present will hopefully be able to use to communicate with us. I-if there are any spirits here… can you speak to us using this sprit box?” he asks. “I’m going to start it now. It’s going to be loud, but please, try to speak to us.”

The burst of static makes him flinch. He takes a steadying breath. Shane is watching him with his usual unreadable expression, still draped over half the chaise like he’s proving a point. Sara looks up from the viewfinder and smiles at him. Because of course, she’s completely unconcerned.

“Daisy Canfield? Are you here?” pause. Static. “Your car slid off the cliffs of Mulholland Drive on your way home from a party. Do you know what happened?” pause. Static. The briefest murmur of a human voice. As always, he feels the twist of fear and uncertainty and hope in his gut. He looks up at Shane, who shrugs. “Did someone… did someone murder you?”

“… _Anton_ …”

Ryan shoots upright, his eyes wide. “Daisy? Is that you?”

The static begins to chop up into sounds, but they’re broken and confused. Ryan thinks he makes out “ _…where is… …where’s Anton…_ ” before the static calms again and he feels like the presence, if it was here, has gone.

He switches off the box. “Oh my god,” Shane says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I fucking hate that thing. Do you think you heard anything?”

“Yeah, I heard her!” Ryan says. “I think she was asking for Antonio. Did you hear it, Sara?”

“I mean, I heard a lot of things.” Sara says, screwing up her face. “I’m just hoping it didn’t blow out the microphones.”

“Where is Antonio, if he’s not here?” Shane asks.

“Well, he moved away after she died. I think he might have remarried.”

Shane sucks in air through his teeth. “Damn. Ain’t that just a bitch.”

They leave Daisy to her own devices.

Finally they arrive in the wing of the house that’s been converted into a recording studio. There’s an atmosphere in here he can only describe as oppressive, which sounds pretty accurate to the testimonies he’s read from musicians who’ve worked in here. The painting he read about online hangs above the mantlepiece: an angelic figure rising into heaven, its demonic counterpart grasping at its legs from below. He wonders whether it reminded Antonio of Daisy after her friend plunged their car off the cliff.

After he sets the big camera down, Ryan looks back toward Sara and Shane, standing together in the doorway. They look so relaxed. Like it’s broad daylight outside and they’re just taking in the sights on a daytrip. God, even in the harsh white of the flashlights they’re both so gorgeous he’d almost believe they were apparitions – he shoves that thought down.

Sara sets up the shot, getting the painting in the back like Ryan asks, and Shane steps in close to him again. Ryan’s arm brushes against his, and Shane flashes him a quick smile as if he knows what Ryan just caught himself thinking. Ryan clears his throat, pointedly ignoring the jolt he feels that has nothing to do with the room.

“In the more than twenty years since the Paramour mansion was reclaimed from its dilapidated state, countless musicians have come forward to speak about their experiences with Daisy’s spirit. It seems that when she was alive, Daisy Canfield harboured a secret musical ambition which she continues to use to influence the creative minds who work in this studio…”

By the time Ryan is done with the read, Shane has wandered over to a piano in the corner and lifted the cover off the keys. He plays an experimental note as Ryan finishes speaking. “Down by the village green…” he sings, valiantly off-key even though Ryan has seen this man do karaoke and knows he’s more than capable of holding a tune, “’Twas there I met a girl called Daisy, and I kissed her by the old oak tree…”

Ryan snorts. “I was thinking we’d use the spirit box to try to contact her, but sure, this works too, I guess.” He wanders over to watch from behind the camera, where Sara is zooming in comically on Shane’s face. She’s laughing, and it’s going to be on the mics, and Ryan doesn’t mind at all because he’s kind of hoping she’ll start letting him put her in the videos soon.

Shane ends on an especially rough note and cranes his neck to look back at them. “There! Wasn’t that so much better than the spirit box?”

“I mean, whatever you say, big guy, but it didn’t really get us any evidence, did it.” Ryan says, arms folded and pouting in spite of himself. Sara pans over to capture the look on his face. He breaks into a laugh.

“Ah, evidence. Okay,” Shane’s being theatrical, turning back to the keys with a flourish, “I’ll just have to keep playing until she pays us a visit.”

“I feel like you’re just as likely to scare her away…” Sara points out.

Shane doesn’t dignify that with an answer. His terrible piano-playing fills the studio again. Ryan tries a few times to get him to shut up, and when that doesn’t work he sets the EMF reader on the piano and watches it do… something. Definitely not enough to convince Shane that ghosts are real, but enough that he can turn it into a big finish in the edit. Shane has clearly had enough of ghost-hunting for tonight, and Ryan has to agree with him. It’s like two in the morning, and nothing about this place has felt particularly active since the master bedroom anyway.

Upstairs, the Blue Room feels a lot less ominous than it did earlier. Ryan half-wonders if Shane actually managed to summon Daisy downstairs and now she’s leaving them in peace for the night. It seems too good to be true, but he’s never felt this relaxed on-site for Supernatural before, and actually getting some sleep for once sounds pretty good.

Sara flops down on the bed. “This is seriously so comfy,” she says, starting to pull off her boots. “I think we’re in for a cushy night. Have you got the go-pro set up, Ry?”

Ryan starts a little at the nickname, but gives her a thumbs up. “We’re rolling,” he says, sitting down at the foot of the bed and starting to take off his own shoes, before he freezes.

For all his goofing around earlier, Shane notices the change right away. “You good, buddy?”

“I, uh, I guess I should go get changed? In the bathroom? At… the other end of the hall?” Ryan doesn’t mean for any of this to come out as questions, but his throat is constricting a little. The hallway is long. And dark.

“Why?” Shane asks.

Ryan looks at him, and then looks at Sara. This seems obvious, and yet Shane looks genuinely puzzled. “Because… otherwise I’d be getting changed in here?”

Shane nods slowly. “Yeah. That’s usually how it works.”

Sara leans forward to interrupt, thankfully, because Shane is clearly more tired that he’s letting on if he’s not seeing a problem here. Only, she just looks at Ryan with this unreadable expression he can’t help but think she must have picked up from Shane and says, “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

And Ryan has absolutely no idea what to do with that or with the feeling that seeing that look on her face sets off in him, but it’s an excuse not to go out into the hall alone, so he takes his pajamas around the other side of the bed and gets changed into them there, focussing on the pale blue wall.

They pile into bed. Ryan finds himself lying next to Sara instead of Shane like he’s used to, and he’s suddenly very conscious of how this is a pretty big bed, but no bed is a three-person bed, and so he’s touching her at knee and thigh and shoulder whether he wants to or not. She’s so warm. He wants so badly to have it in him to do the gentlemanly thing and go sleep on the floor, but he can’t seem to pull himself away.

Shane slips an arm around Sara’s waist like they’re in bed at home, kisses her on her shoulder and smiles when she laughs, curls into the touch, and it’s, oh, god, so sweet. Ryan wishes this were happening anywhere but right next to him where they can probably see the colour rising in his cheeks even in the dim blue light. There’s a mirror on the far wall. He looks as stiff and awkward there as he feels here. Probably the whole getting some sleep thing was optimistic of him.

“Still feeling spooked?” Shane asks, sounding genuinely concerned, and Ryan startles a little. Looking over at him, he feels his face heat all over again. His shirt is riding up, baring his hips. Ryan has seen him shirtless a hundred times and none of them have made him feel this overwhelmed.

“I, uh-” Ryan starts an octave too high, and then stops, and tries again, “No, I’m just, um, trying to get comfortable.”

Sara laughs softly, sleepily. “You’re gonna have a hard time getting comfortable if you keep this up,” she says, and her eyes flick down to where his knee is resting against hers and then back up to his.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry -” Ryan pulls away, eyes widening, but she stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Not what I meant,” she says.

Ryan doesn’t know what to say to that, but he settles back down. Sara seems happy with this. Her eyes drift shut.

Shane is leaning his chin on her, watching Ryan. Ryan meets his eyes. He knows he probably looks like a kicked puppy right now but he’s just not good at the whole unreadable face thing that they do. “I don’t…?” he mouths.

Shane half-smiles. “She means you’re being awkward, Bergara,” he says, barely above a whisper.

Ryan blinks at him. “I don’t want to get in your space,” he says.

“You two share a bed all the time, so why should this be any different?” she replies. She’s opened her eyes again, darkened by sleep, just watching him.

Ryan doesn’t say, “Because when it’s both of you I can’t pretend we’re just bros hunting ghosts.” He doesn’t say, “Because when it’s both of you I’m paranoid you’re going to know what I’m thinking somehow and kick me out for making everything weird.” He just lies there and looks at them, this perfect picture of domestic bliss so close to him that he can’t quite focus on it without his contacts in and yet painfully far away.

This silence, he thinks too late, is probably damning.

Shane shrugs, sits up, resting his hand on Sara’s hip as he pulls out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks.

“It’s a nervous habit,” Sara says.

“Why are you nervous?” he asks.

“Probably the same reason you are, Ry.” Shane says. His face is very white in the glow from his screen.

Ryan hadn’t thought of that, he realises.

He hadn’t really considered that Shane could even _be_ nervous.

He takes a deep breath and gets up, crosses to the camera in corner of the room, and turns it off. Shane sets his phone down, watching him with wide eyes as he returns to the bed. Ryan remembers this afternoon, how Shane had waited motionless for him to open the front door, and knows he has to be the one to speak.

“…I’m nervous because I don’t want to fuck up,” Ryan says after a long quiet. He feels like he’s stepping up to the cliff on Mulholland Drive all over again. “I’m scared I’m seeing something that isn’t there and I’m going to lose both of you if I reach out for it.”

Sara sits up too. Shane lets out a shaky sigh and shifts forward until the three of them are sitting cross-legged in a circle. They’ve summoned something into the room with them that can’t easily be dispelled, but Ryan can’t bring himself take the next step alone.

“Please,” he says.

Sara takes Ryan’s hand in her own. He looks down at them in her lap, like day and dusk in the blue light. When he looks up at her, he sees belief. “You’re not going to lose us, Ryan,” she says. He twines their fingers. She doesn’t falter.

He steps closer to the edge. Reaches out.

Shane’s face is rough with stubble. He covers Ryan’s hand with his own, pressing it to his cheek. His eyes are so dark in the dim blue glow, but finally, Ryan feels like he can read them.

He leans forward, and the cliff’s edge gives way, and Shane’s mouth is warm on his as he falls.

**Author's Note:**

> +1 if you recognise the terrible terrible reference I'm making by having these poor souls go to the Paramour.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Daisy Canfield Will Have Her Revenge on Los Angeles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16029128) by [istie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/istie/pseuds/istie)




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